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February 28, 2007

I'm Ready For My Closeup, Mr. DeMille

I can officially add "Paid Model" to my resume now. Not that being a paid model will help me in my probable future career path, but the fact is that I can add it should I decide that it may assist me in some way some day down the line. Like when I've become a depressed, unpublished alcoholic, languishing on the side of I-10 on the outskirts of El Paso, my only career options being drug dealing or low-class prostitution and I need a resume to present to the head pimp. It may come in handy then.

Anyway.

This morning I headed over to the public library and posed in various attitudes for 3 hours for a group of talented ladies who did a surprisingly fabulous job of making me look rather lovely in my camouflage uniform. And then they paid me twenty five dollars and asked me to come back week after next. What they don't realize is that I'll do pretty much anything for twenty five dollars. Hell, I'll do pretty much anything for five dollars right now--it's a good sight better than the zero dollars an hour I've been making for the past two weeks.

What no one tells you is what hard work modeling actually is. I mean, I don't know about photograph modeling where you crawl around in a bathing suit and growl like a tiger, that actually seems more humiliating than "hard work", but maintaining one position without moving for upwards of 15 minutes is a lot harder than it sounds. Go ahead, try it, I'll be here when you get back.

I'll bet you didn't do it. Chicken!

The first 15 minutes of the session were "gestures", which I only had to hold for a few minutes at a time--no big deal, I thought to myself. This is cake, I scoffed as I gracefully lifted an arm, or artistically bent a leg. Then the first long pose arrived, and I slouched artfully in a plastic library chair with my legs sprawled out before me and my hands folded across my stomach, gazing wistfully into the distance. Two minutes into the pose I was stifling the urge to yawn, and five minutes in a little itch started to manifest itself by my nose. I managed to get the yawn under control, but the itch was spreading out to my cheek and then flitting over to the other side of my face, or on my neck. As my itch mischievously danced its way around my upper body, my tailbone began to throb and eventually started to feel numb, and I tried to adjust myself ever so slightly, so that the angle of my position wouldn't change but blood would have a chance to reenter my posterior region. Just when I started to think that we had slipped through a tear in the space time continuum where 15 minutes was equivalent to 24 hours, the timer buzzed and I was able to stand and stretch. And then I relived those fifteen minutes another 5 times before our time was up.

So, when they asked me if I would come back, I hesitated. Colby would be in town on that day, and we had plans to do wedding planning that afternoon... did I really want to spend another 3 hours of my life dreading how I would turn out in charcoal and with a stiff leg and numb butt? Then they handed me the twenty five dollars, and that's really all it took to get me to say yes to another appearance. What can I say. I'm just a slave to the arts.